Airport Identifier Codes

I was looking up something recently and stumbled upon this great article about the history of airport identifier codes. Things I learned were that early airports with two-letter weather station codes received an X on the end — LA became LAX and Portland's PD became PDX. And I finally found out why Newark is EWR. As it turns out, the Navy took all the N codes (surprised that the Marines didn't take all the M codes and Army didn't take the A codes!) which is why Newark does not start with N. The most intriguing to me is the Knoxville Airport. As it turns out it was built on land donated by the Tyson family in honor of their son who was killed in World War I and so the airport symbol is TYS.

What I find the most interesting though is the conversion to 4 letter ICAO codes when you get out into the pacific. In the lower 48 you would just add a K (for example KLAX) but once you get out to Hawaii you add PH and subtract a letter from the end (HNL becomes PHHN). When I was working on getting my private pilots license I flew over in Maui a couple of times. Come check ride time the examiner here in CA was a little thrown off by the PHOG entries in my logbook, like where's that?

5 letter way points also are fun. Like SMOGY in LA. Sometimes they are named after local teams (BOSOX) or local words (MAKAI in Hawaii) Other fun ones include NARCO, DRUNK, SEXXY, BEACH, CRAZY.

What I find the most interesting though is the conversion to 4 letter ICAO codes when you get out into the pacific. In the lower 48 you would just add a K (for example KLAX) but once you get out to Hawaii you add PH and subtract a letter from the end (HNL becomes PHHN). When I was working on getting my private pilots license I flew over in Maui a couple of times. Come check ride time the examiner here in CA was a little thrown off by the PHOG entries in my logbook, like where's that?

Click to expand...

Part of what I had to do my first week at Classic was memorize all the airport and hotel codes for Hawaii. I remembered Maui's main airport with:

“Our intention was never to launch a website, our intention was to build a global brand for frequent flyers.”

content + community + technology + social

InsideFlyer was created by travelers, for travelers. Here you can discover and share your experiences related to travel and frequent flyer programs with business travelers, leisure travelers, infrequent flyers and road warriors alike.

InsideFlyer is a privately funded venture based in Colorado Springs, CO (affectionally—the House of Miles). We’re a small diverse group of experienced frequent flyer experts, travel community builders, technologists, and friends of the flyer who want to help you learn to be an expert traveler. We believe that learning about frequent flyer miles should be as fun as travel itself.